Joy, Pure and Beautiful
by purrfectj
Summary: And it wasn't just hope that spread across Meera's face and into her eyes but joy, pure and beautiful, as she reached out to her Commander and said, "Please." - A sequel as requested to Betrayal, Pure and Painful


"You have to help me." When the Spymaster did not move from her relaxed position in her chair in the rookery, only raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at him, Dorian made a flicking motion with his fingers. "Stop, stop, I know, I owe you too many favors already, I'm too pretty and ask for too much, blah blah. This one isn't for me, I'll have you know, but for Mimi."

"The Inquisitor?" Leliana's voice was intrigued, her spine straightening slowly, and Dorian knew he had her interest. He plopped into the other chair at the table and wished, desperately, for a glass of wine.

"Yes. I might have implied to the delicious Commander that the adorable Mimi and I are having a torrid affair." When Leliana snapped to complete attention, her blue eyes narrowing dangerously on his face, Dorian gulped and sadly contemplated his lack of healing magic. Throwing up his hands, palms out, in a gesture of peace, he babbled, "Don't hurt me! I didn't do it on purpose. We were in her quarters, she needed a snuggle and where was he I want to know, and when he came in he just made these terrible assumptions and stormed off. Now Mimi is all sad and mopey and I can't find the Commander anywhere."

"They are both so fragile, Dorian," Leliana rebuked and Dorian winced because he knew that, he did, it's why he had wormed his way into such intimacy with Meera and continued to tease the poor Commander. Both of them were so broken, somehow, cracked and shattered. They needed the other to heal.

"I'm sorry. Yes, very sorry. But I can't fix it if he won't let me." Leliana's raised hand stopped his babbling, but only just. And because she was so good at thinking and planning and particularly at plotting, Dorian sank back into his chair and let her work.

"Do you play chess?" She asked it with a dubious expression, fully expecting him to say no. He wanted to say no because chess was his father and his childhood and afternoons with Felix, but instead,

"That is a non-sequitur if I ever…okay, yes, I play chess. I _cheat_ , but I play."

Leliana's smile was more dangerous than her raised eyebrow. "Be at the gazebo in the garden tomorrow just after luncheon." Clearly dismissing him, she returned to her slouching and her reports, though her gaze strayed out the window and if he didn't know better Dorian would have thought she looked sad.

Dorian was halfway down the stairs when she called, "Do be sincere when you grovel."

OoO

* * *

OoO

"You want to play chess." At Leliana's enthusiastic nod and winning smile, Cullen's frown only grew deeper and more suspicious. "With me."

"Yes! It will be such fun and we can enjoy the sunshine. You haven't been outside in ages, I bet!"

He did his best not to point out that he did, in fact, take a run every morning with his troops and that he did, in fact, spar in the practice ring every evening after supper. All of that occurred outside, rain or shine. She looked so earnest, though, and she'd already linked her arm through his and started dragging him along, away from his desk and his tower and safety. Safety from Mee…the Inquisitor and Dorian and Mother Giselle who insisted he be informed every time the blighted magister and the Inquisitor were seen cuddled up in some corner somewhere. What was that to him, anyway, if they wanted to parade their affections all over Skyhold? He thought Mee…the Inquisitor too level-headed to indulge too many of the Tevinter's schemes and if she was happy and he made her smile and Maker she had such a lovely smile, those big eyes warming, softening, the curve to her pretty pink…Cullen pulled himself back sharply, closing his eyes with a muttered, muffled curse.

Leliana pretended not to hear but she did give Mother Giselle, who had started toward them as they entered the garden, a quick negative head shake. She eased, bullied, pressed Cullen into one of the chairs at the chess table then sank into the one across from him. "It's a lovely day, isn't it?" she tried. His narrow amber glance had her mouth almost twitching up into a smile. Almost. To quell the urge, she began setting out the chess pieces, keeping her head lowered. After a bit, she heard the expected disgruntled but fair-minded sound of Cullen's acquiescence.

They played in silence, the straight-forward Commander and the devious Spymaster, and moment by moment, Cullen let himself relax, let himself fall into the pleasure of a well-played match in the quiet bit of garden, the soft twitter of the birds, the smell of the flowers both ornamental and useful that perfumed the soft summer air, the peace that he knew only seldom without the quick flash burn of the lyrium in his system. He'd just maneuvered himself into winning when the sudden scrape of magic along his tattered Templar senses caused him to wince, to lift his eyes, to glare.

He really, really hated the smug, smooth, smirking, striking Tevinter bastard who had Meera smiling all over Skyhold.

Dorian thought about smiling until he saw Cullen's hands, his big, strong, angry hands, clench on the edges of the table until his knuckles turned white. Instead he bowed, slightly, from the waist, and addressed himself only to Leliana. "Pardon me, Leliana, but Scout Harding has just returned and requested your presence most urgently."

"Oh, but, we've almost finished our game!" Leliana tried to inject the perfect amount of disappointment and regret into her voice even as she rose from her chair. She waved Cullen back with a smile when he went to rise with her. "Please, don't get up. I'm sure Dorian would be happy to take my place." She tried not to wiggle in glee when Cullen's face flushed in rage and Dorian looked properly horrified. She pushed, shoved, nudged Dorian into her chair and managed, just, a sedate, meandering pace back into the keep.

She had an Inquisitor to lure into the garden.

OoO

* * *

OoO

He had not one thing to say. How people in Tevinter would laugh and laugh to see Dorian Pavus brought so low, with nary a quip or a glib remark to his name. To his shock, it was Cullen who broke the silence.

"You make her happy."

He must have looked like some exotic bird as his head swiveled on his neck, looking toward the retreating Spymaster and back to the Commander. "Leliana?" he managed to squeak. How lowering, to sound like some untried adolescent. Until Cullen's very handsome face settled into very forbidding, very dangerous lines and he leaned across the table. It took every bit of discipline, and he had so very little, not to jerk back from the suddenly looming Commander.

"If you hurt her, if she so much as sheds one single tear over you, I will skin you alive, one body part at a time, while slowly severing you from the Fade." Satisfied when the Tevinter nodded and swallowed convulsively, his eyes huge and terrified, Cullen settled back into his chair, bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile, and gestured magnanimously at the board. "Shall I reset the pieces?"

"I'm not sleeping with Mimi," Dorian blurted artlessly because oh Maker Dorian could _see_ that the Commander meant it, every word, the normally bashful, respectful, stern, playful Commander would hurt him, torture him, end him if he hurt Meera, Meera who was loved, adored in a way Dorian hoped one day in his miserable, violent, possibly short life to be beloved.

Cullen grunted, then frowned, then sighed, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "It's none of my business if you are. I just don't want to see her hurt. She deserves..." He trailed away for a moment, his eyes drifting over Dorian's shoulder, softening, warming, gentling, his interestingly scarred mouth curling up sweetly at the corners. "Everything. More."

"You," Dorian supplied promptly, then leaned forward eagerly across the table at Cullen's outraged glance. "No, no, wait, hear me out. I'm not sleeping with Mimi. No sex, no kissing, no over the clothes or under the clothes or in the clothes or bed or...nothing. I swear." He saw Cullen's disbelieving glance skate over him toward Mother Giselle and back, winced as one of Cullen's sandy brows rose archly. Could _everyone_ in the Inquisition do the stupid trick? Maybe Leliana went around teaching it to them. "The old woman is a busybody."

"I saw you, Dorian. In her quarters. I saw you..." Cullen's hands flexed, his eyes squeezing shut. He could still see it, the churned bedclothes, the warmth on her face, Dorian's hand on her back, the sweetness and contentment that just poured out of her like sunlight. "She looked so happy." His eyes blinked open, pinned Dorian to the chair, his belly coiled into the hard, painful knots of jealousy and misplaced rage and hopelessness, the words torn from him: "You love her."

"Well what a stupid thing to say, of course I do. Who doesn't? She's sweet and she's soft and she's kind and she's fair and she saved us, keeps saving us, rushes right in without thinking about herself, closes the rifts, kills the demons, wears ridiculous outfits to soothe the nobles, eats the wretched camp food, kills dragons to make Bull shout obscene things he plans to do to himself later." Dorian paused for breath but didn't let Cullen speak. "Of course I love her but I'm not _in_ love with her. I'd be more likely to fall in love with you."

Surprise but not disgust flickered across Cullen's face, then disquiet and something that might have been the first faint flicker of hope. Dorian pressed the advantage. "Commander. She looks at you and she _sees_ you. She sees the broken, damaged, mixed-up parts of you that align so perfectly with the broken, damaged, mixed-up parts of her." Dorian dared to reach out and touch the back of Cullen's hand, lightly, with two fingers. "There was never a betrayal. She's yours if you only have the courage to ask."

"I want to believe you like I want to breathe," Cullen whispered brokenly.

From just outside the gazebo, the sound of someone taking a sharp breath had both men turning. Dorian's fingers slid away from Cullen's skin as the Commander leaped to his feet.

And it wasn't just hope that spread across Meera's face and into her eyes but joy, pure and beautiful, as she reached out to her Commander and said, "Please."


End file.
